Saturday, December 20, 2014

Happy New Beginnings to All!

This post was born from the Google recap of 2014. Love it or hate it, it is the brief history of 365 days on this planet. It is the conglomerate of anyone with internet access and a google search bar. It is what our internet lives have emerged as...

The end of one year brings the beginning of another. Some would find this monotonous...trivial, maybe. Some would find it pointless. Why do we bother marking a rotation of the sun? Maybe it's to remind us that we aren't the center. Maybe it's to remind us that we are alive. Maybe it's to remind us that time is real and fake. That in the triviality of our lives, we can still find meaning and hope.

I love the end of the year. It brings excitement. It brings joy and celebration and happiness for what is coming. I hope to be able to carry these emotions with me through all days but, when I've reached the point where I almost almost empty of them, I can look forward again, to the coming of another start. A new year, a new day, a new hour. There is newness and excitement in every moment, if we choose that perspective. It's all about perspective really. The Chinese started the new year months ago...we could choose to "start over" any time we want.

I think there is a great feeling of community and sharing that occurs during the start of the calendar year that we all celebrate together as human beings. The beauty that comes with a celebration around the globe for 24 hours of "new beginnings" as midnight creeps across the planet is not only fascinating, but also liberating, not only breathtaking, but binding. We are human. We are ending and beginning all at once and all at different moments. We are global. We are not the center of anything. We are tiny specks that exist for small moments in the greater existence of the universe, and we celebrate THAT.

Let's celebrate the lists of things that we care about and the lists of things that we hope for and the list of things we've accomplished. Let's celebrate lists! I love lists! I love the lists that come out at the end of the year to review what we've experienced, for better or for worse. To review what we have come through and enjoyed and survived gives us fuel to go forward. You can look back and still choose to move forward. That's the end of the year. That's the beginning of the year. THAT is the grand celebration of life! So celebrate life with all of the fervor you can muster, this year, this month, this week, this moment...because life is precious. Humanity and our planet are precious.

Our ability to simultaneously stop and start, die and live, end and begin is a miracle that we are privy to whenever we so choose. So cast aside your worries and your negative experiences as rules, and view them instead as lessons for the future. Let your love and hopes burst to the front of the pack and let your mind be at ease knowing that you are beginning something fresh and new.

If you let your life be trivial, you've forgotten that the beauty is in the details.